


wonderful is true in truth

by ingeneva



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: F/F, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 20:12:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ingeneva/pseuds/ingeneva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eduardo was mad at Mark. </p><p>Mark, as usual, seemed to have missed it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wonderful is true in truth

**Author's Note:**

> This has been a patchwork effort over an embarrassingly large span of time. Thanks to the lovely folk who have looked this over, and as always, any typos and/or missing capitals are mine. Title from "The Rat Within the Grain" by Damien Rice.

Eduardo was mad at Mark. 

Mark, as usual, seemed to have missed it.

Eduardo woke up to three text messages from her that said, _Bring food when you come over; I don’t care what it is as long it’s not oatmeal; Coffee would be good too_.

Eduardo just stared at it for a minute, like somehow the letters would transform themselves into words she’d actually understand, like _sorry_ or _I know I don’t deserve you_ or _no, I didn’t actually ditch you on Friday because I wanted to watch Star Wars instead_. At this point, Eduardo would probably take an outright denial; she could accept that. But even that was too much to expect from Mark, who probably hadn’t noticed Eduardo’s absence all weekend. Either way, Mark wasn’t the kind of person who apologized; Mark was the kind of person who sent texts at five-thirty in the morning about what she wanted for breakfast.

Eduardo flopped back on her bed. Mark was probably pulling an unnecessary all-nighter, which meant if Eduardo replied, she’d have about five minutes to strengthen her resolve before Mark got back to her. If she was lucky, Mark would say something to upset her even more so she didn’t have to feel guilty about going straight to class. 

She quickly texted back, _I don’t have time. Maybe you can just go to the dining hall? They serve breakfast until ten_.

After a minute of waiting, Eduardo slipped out of bed and into the shower. The water ran too hot for five minutes and then ice cold while she rinsed her hair out. She was feeling properly sorry for herself by the time she crawled out, shivering and wet, and her phone beeped around the same time she stepped on one of her roommate’s errant hair clips. It didn’t really hurt, but Eduardo took a couple uneasy steps anyway, like it should.

The text from Mark just said _okay_.

Eduardo probably shouldn’t have been disappointed, but she was.

*

Eduardo managed to avoid Mark for two more days with very little effort; she didn’t actually have to do anything but not contact her. Mark never made herself present enough that Eduardo actively had to ignore her, and it wasn’t like Eduardo didn’t know that she was overwhelmingly responsible for keeping their friendship together, but she still felt stupid when faced with the reality of it. It was the kind of thing her father would berate her for; only she could befriend someone for five months and leave without making an impression.

On the third day, Mark was sitting outside her dorm when Eduardo came back from class. She almost looked like she was sleeping, hidden inside the folds of her sweatshirt, but she looked up when Eduardo’s footsteps came closer. She seemed exhausted, but Mark never really slept; she always looked exhausted, if not also a little vitamin-deficient. Eduardo focused on fumbling with her door and not asking Mark when she last ate, which was surprisingly difficult.

“Hey,” Mark said, nudging Eduardo’s ankle with her knuckles. Eduardo glanced over at her, unable to stop the impulse. Mark was smiling a little bit, which just meant that the usually tense line of her mouth had softened.

Eduardo was mad, and she told herself not to smile back. “Hi, Mark,” she said. She pushed the door open and couldn’t manage to make herself close it when she walked in.

Mark followed a few feet behind her. She had only been in Eduardo’s room once or twice before, and she looked so out of place, hovering just inside the doorway. If it were any other week, Eduardo would have laughed and told her to get comfortable, but it wasn’t, so she sat on her bed and pulled her shoes off, avoiding Mark’s general direction.

“I don’t get why you wear those,” Mark said, as Eduardo tossed her heels toward her closet. “You’re just going to class. Nobody cares.”

Eduardo cared, but sometimes she didn’t understand why she wore them either, especially when the arch of her foot ached even after she took them off. She didn’t tell Mark that, though. Mark wore sweatshirts and flip-flops. She didn’t even understand the necessity of socks. She was the last person Eduardo wanted criticizing her clothes.

The silence stretched on until Mark asked, “Didn’t your class get out at ten?”

“Yeah,” Eduardo said, glancing over as Mark took a couple shuffling steps toward her desk. “Why?”

“I was waiting,” Mark said. “It’s almost eleven now.”

“I went out for coffee.”

“Okay,” Mark replied, like she didn’t care, like Eduardo wasn’t just answering her question. It was suddenly not so difficult to be angry at Mark, who was sprawling in Eduardo’s computer chair and tapping her computer awake. 

“Did you want something?” Eduardo asked.

“Hmm,” Mark said. She was on Eduardo’s welcome screen, trying to guess her password before she was locked out. It was like a sport for her, hacking into Eduardo’s stuff - sometimes she got into Eduardo’s email and changed her signature to something embarrassing because it made her laugh, because she could.

“Mark,” Eduardo said, getting up to turn her computer off.

“I heard you the first time.” Mark pushed herself away from Eduardo’s desk. “Also, you shouldn’t force your computer to shut down.”

Eduardo closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them, Mark was looking at her. “Why are you here, Mark?”

Mark didn’t look away for a few moments, but the silence that followed was stubborn enough that Eduardo gave up on getting an answer. She was surprised when it came a couple minutes later, as she unpacked her bag and Mark kicked out an unsteady rhythm against the frame of her bed. “I haven’t seen you in a couple of days,” she said.

It had been more than a couple, but Eduardo didn’t tell her that. She didn’t feel like telling her anything.

“Dustin said you were probably sick,” Mark added.

“I’m not,” Eduardo said.

“Then what?” Mark asked.

Eduardo closed her eyes again briefly. The only thing more exhausting than avoiding Mark was being confronted by Mark, and she did not particularly feel up to either of them anymore. “I’m busy,” she told Mark. “Some of us actually have to work to pass a class.”

Mark was silent for a moment, then, “I know that.” She sounded defensive.

“Then I’ll talk to you later,” Eduardo said, looking at the wall beside Mark’s head. Not that it mattered -- Mark had her chin tilted down, face turned slightly toward the wall. She probably wasn’t listening anymore. “Okay?”

Mark didn’t even twitch in response, not then, and not when Eduardo’s phone rang. She dug through her bag until she found it, and it was her dad, who Eduardo hadn’t spoken to since the last time he’d called a few weeks back. She thought about not picking up, but the door clicked shut behind Mark, and Eduardo couldn’t find a reason not to.

*

On Thursday, Eduardo found one of Mark’s sweatshirts wedged between her bed and the wall. She knew it was Mark’s because it said Exeter, and it was worn and a size too big. It took her a minute to remember why she had it. Mark wasn’t generous by any definition, but it had been raining and the temperature dropped twenty degrees, and she’d let Eduardo borrow it because all Eduardo had been wearing was an increasingly transparent button-up and bare knees. That had been a month ago. Eduardo hadn’t remembered she still had it, and neither had Mark, if it was still there.

Now that she knew she had it, it didn’t feel right to keep it. It also didn’t feel right to give it back to Mark, so she tucked in in her bag and went to see if Dustin was around. He was in the same hall as Mark, but Eduardo wasn't worried about seeing her; she only left her room when necessary, and occasionally not even then.

It was a little past seven when Eduardo tentatively knocked on the door. She could hear the TV inside, the usual eight-bit music that played when it wasn't the sound of shooting guns. She waited for a minute, probably unheard, until Dustin said, “Dude, come in if you’re going to come in. I'm not getting up.”

Eduardo opened the door just enough to peek in. “Hi,” she said. “I just--”

“Wardo,” Dustin said, lifting his elbow in a wave. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Hey. I had something of Mark’s, so I thought I’d just--” It sounded weird, when she said it out loud. “Can I leave it here?”

“I think you dropped part of your sentence.”

“Mark’s sweatshirt,” Eduardo said. She grabbed it out of her bag and held it out as if to prove it really existed. “Can I leave it here?”

“If you want?” Dustin was frowning, but Eduardo couldn't tell if he was frowning at her or if he was frowning about the fact that he had yet to rescue Pauline. “Mark’s probably in her room, though. If you actually wanted to give it to her.

“I--”

“But avoidance is a valid life choice, too,” Dustin said. “Set it down wherever.”

“Okay,” Eduardo hung it on one the coat hooks beside the door. “Thanks. I should probably--”

“You don’t have to go,” Dustin told her, looking away from his game to give her a quick grin. “Just because Mark isn’t here doesn’t mean we can’t hang out. And Chris is supposed to be back any minute. He had some gay stuff to take care of.”

“Gay stuff,” Eduardo repeated, setting her book bag down by the door. “Really?”

“His words, not mine,” Dustin said, then, “Shit,” as he got hit by one too many barrels. When he noticed that Eduardo planned to stay, he paused the game and got up to clear a space for her on the couch. The effort was sweet, even though it just meant Eduardo had to step on his dirty laundry instead of sit on it.

Dustin wasn’t really her friend. He was Mark’s friend, and Eduardo knew him well enough to carry on a conversation but not well enough to keep herself from anticipating Chris’ arrival. She sat down gingerly, and Dustin didn’t go back to his game. He turned to face her and grinned. She smiled back. He clearly hadn’t thought any further than that, because he said, “So.”

“So,” Eduardo said, and Dustin just smiled a little wider, sort of helplessly.

*

Chris took more than a half an hour to come back to the room. In that time, Dustin had managed to make her laugh, step on her foot, and accidentally hit on her. Dustin was a nice guy, but that was part of his problem. His boundaries were clearly defined with Mark, but he walked them with Eduardo, never intentionally enough to be offensive but frequent enough that she needed a buffer. It was kind of a relief for both of them when Chris meandered in with the energy of someone who had studied too much and slept too little. When he saw Eduardo, he smiled like he was surprised to see her but didn’t mind.

“Hey, guys,” he said.

“How was the meeting? Gay crisis averted?” Dustin asked. He made eyebrows at Eduardo, which made no sense to her and also didn’t escape Chris’s notice.

“I wish you’d stop calling them that.”

“I would if you’d stop ditching me for them,” Dustin replied. He batted his eyelashes. “I’m starting to feel unappreciated, Chris. What happened to us? Our love used to be so strong.”

Chris shook his head, but his mouth curved up the longer Dustin looked at him until he peeled off a glove to throw at Dustin’s head. Dustin laughed and sank down, even though the glove landed a foot short and behind the couch. He was still laughing when Chris went to put the rest of his stuff away.

Dustin stayed slouched down and kicked his feet up on the coffee table, his hands laced loosely over his stomach. He looked relaxed, for the first time, and Eduardo let her shoulders drop. “Can I get something to drink?”

“What?” Dustin asked, but he waved his hand toward the kitchenette. “Yeah, go ahead. I don’t think we really have anything, though. Beer. Some juice I can’t advise you to drink. Plenty of tap water, though.”

“Thanks,” Eduardo said, getting up. She hadn’t been expecting anything more.

There were a couple dubiously clean cups in the cabinet, and she was rinsing one out when Chris squeezed by next to her. 

“Coffee?” he asked. 

“I can’t drink coffee after five,” she told him. “I’d never sleep.”

“I can’t sleep,” Chris says. “Bio exam tomorrow. I don’t think I’ve retained anything.”

“You’ll do fine,” Eduardo replied, and he looked at her like it didn’t mean anything, which was fair enough. She found herself saying a lot of things she didn’t necessarily mean because she felt she was expected to say them. Even when she did mean them, they didn’t manage to make it out quite like they should.

She got her glass of water, and Chris made his coffee, and they stood together in the kitchenette, quietly keeping company, when Chris said, “Mark says you’re mad at her.”

Eduardo tried to keep her face from reacting, but she doubted she was successful. “Did she?”

“In a Mark sort of way,” Chris said, which probably meant Mark shrugged a little more aggressively than usual. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“There isn’t really anything to talk about,” Eduardo murmured, looking at the wall over Chris’s shoulder. She took a sip of her water. Chris looked at her expectantly over the rim of his cup. “I'm not mad.”

Chris just kept looking at her.

“I'm not. I’m frustrated, sure,” she said, “but I'm not mad at her. How can I get mad at Mark for being Mark?” 

“Many have found a way,” Chris said wisely.

Eduardo wished she knew their secret, because it would have made her life a hell of a lot easier. Just hearing Mark’s name was making her feel a little guilty. She should have just said something on Friday and let it all blow over; it suddenly didn't feel worth it. Six days had passed and all Eduardo had was a friend she couldn’t talk to and a lingering misery that followed her to bed at night. Even if it wasn't that different from every other week, at least then she got the brief moments that made it worth it, Mark’s laugh or her attention or how soft and tactile she got when she was tired enough. Eduardo missed her more than she wanted Mark to change.

“I should go,” she said, and she gestured with her now empty cup. “Thanks for the water and everything.”

“Anytime,” Chris said.

Eduardo sent him a quick smile, which he returned, briefly. She went to grab her bag, and Dustin watched her quietly from the couch. She pretended he wasn’t until he said, “There’s a party tomorrow night. You should come! Plenty of booze and sorority chicks.”

Eduardo suddenly regretted ever talking to him while she was drunk. “I’ll think about it.”

“What’s there to think about?” Dustin asked. “At least check it out. You can always go home if you want.” He paused to grin at her. “And Mark’s not going to be there, so--”

“We’ll see,” she said, edging her way out. “Goodbye, Dustin.”

He waved enthusiastically until she closed the door.

*

Mark was at the party. Eduardo’s stomach plummeted when she saw her, tucked away near the kitchen with Dustin, but Mark didn’t even seem to notice she was there. She said something to Dustin, who nodded, and then she disappeared into the crowd in a way only Mark could. Dustin, on the other hand, took ten seconds to see Eduardo, and two more to wave her over.

“Hey!” he said, leaning in a bit. He was shorter than Eduardo; she had to bend down to hear him correctly. “You came!”

“Yeah,” Eduardo said. “It was either this or spending the night with lit homework. There wasn’t much competition.”

“Well, I'm glad you’re here, anyway,” he said. He touched her arm and pointed back toward the kitchen. “I’m going to get a beer. Do you want one?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Dustin held up his fingers to signal that he’d be back in two seconds and took off, leaving Eduardo hovering in the doorway between rooms with nothing to do but wait. It was an off-campus party, and there were a few faces she recognized, but none of them well enough to make small talk. She wondered where Mark had wandered off to. If Eduardo barely knew anyone, chances are Mark hadn’t seen any of them before in her life. She was probably standing near a wall and drinking quickly. She only came to parties for the free booze, and the more efficiently she got drunk, the less time she had to waste before she could go back to her room.

Dustin came back in twice the time it probably should have taken him, but he had a beer in both hands and a bottle opener on his keychain.

“Thanks,” Eduardo said, when he handed her one, and she resisted temptation for two seconds before she added, “Mark came.”

“Yep,” Dustin said.

She waited for him to follow it up, but he didn't. He grinned at her and took a drink of his beer. Eduardo drank, too, even though she was not very fond of the taste, and asked, “Do you know where she went?”

“She saw Chris,” Dustin said, “so wherever Chris is.”

“That’s not really helpful,” Eduardo said.

“No,” Dustin agreed.

He saw one of his friends after their silence started closing in on awkward, some guy who was already alcohol-flushed and making his way toward them, so Eduardo didn’t feel bad about excusing herself. She squeezed around the doorframe and into what she assumed was the living room, though there was mostly makeshift furniture that seemed to have no specific purpose. 

It wasn't a particularly busy party, but the house was built with too many walls and narrow door frames, and Eduardo felt like she bumped into people every other step. It didn’t help that most of the people were on their way to being drunkenly uncoordinated, and Eduardo was terrible about enforcing her personal space. Halfway toward the back of the house, she got caught in a shuffle with a guy she recognized from her lit class, who said, “Eduardo, right? Hi, hey.”

Eduardo didn’t remember his name, but she smiled and said, “Hey. What’s up?”

“Nothing, really,” he said with a small shrug. “The usual.”

“That’s always fun,” she said, and he laughed like it was something funny. She felt her smile catch uncertainly. He smiled back, making unwavering eye contact that she wasn't used to being on the receiving end of. “Are you enjoying the class?”

“Yeah,” he said with a definitive nod of his head. “But I’m concentrating in literature, so--”

“It’s right up your alley.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “What about you?”

“What?” she asked, even though she understood the question a fraction of a second later, but he was already leaning in, his chin tucked down thoughtfully. “Economics, but my literary analysis is passable.”

“That’s always useful,” he said, and he was laughing again.

“Yeah.”

Eduardo was trying to figure out the kindest way to ditch him when she heard, “Wardo.”

Mark sounded almost sweet sometimes. Of course, when Eduardo turned around, she was frowning, like she just happened to find herself there and didn’t want to be. Mark was never content with anything. Eduardo had yet to figure out if it was because Mark didn’t know how to be happy or if she just didn’t want to be.

“Mark,” she said, “hey.”

Mark didn’t make eye contact with her; she glanced over Eduardo’s shoulder before she said, “Can we talk?”

“Yeah, sure,” Eduardo replied, before she looked back and told the guy, “Sorry, I really need--”

He waved off her excuse, and she was suddenly disappointed that she didn’t know his name but couldn’t bring herself to ask for it then. Mark, now that she had Eduardo’s attention, shuffled down the hall and left Eduardo falling behind her. Eduardo sent the guy another apologetic smile before she took a few quick steps and caught Mark’s sleeve. “Mark--”

Mark didn’t respond, but she didn’t shake Eduardo off, either. It was more than Eduardo usually got from her.

*

Mark stopped walking when she reached the end of an empty, narrow hallway. Eduardo had been a few steps behind her the entire time; she slowed to a stop, and Mark leaned back against the wall, tucked both of her hands in her sweatshirt pocket. She looked at Eduardo’s chin. Eduardo pushed her hair off her forehead and looked down. If Mark wanted to talk, she could talk. Eduardo didn’t know what to say, anyway.

Eventually, Mark asked, “Are you still mad at me?”

“I was never mad at you,” Eduardo replied.

“You’ve been ignoring me all week.”

Eduardo shook her head, unable to keep herself from frowning. “I can’t ignore someone who’s not around, Mark.”

“I was,” Mark said. “Wednesday.”

She sounded tentative, like she wasn’t even sure that was right, and Eduardo looked up at her. Mark was looking at the ground now, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Eduardo said, “After I stopped talking to you on Friday.”

Mark glanced up, briefly. “So you were mad at me.”

“I wasn’t mad,” Eduardo said, leaning against the wall. She was a few feet away from Mark, but Mark still shifted her feet back like it was too close. “Stop trying to put words into my mouth. I wasn’t mad at you.”

“Then what.” Mark didn’t bother inflecting.

“Then you ditched me.” At Mark’s blank look, Eduardo added, “You invited me to that stupid AEPi thing on Friday, remember? I went because you asked me to, and you didn’t even show up. It’s like you don’t even--”

“I did go,” Mark said. She reached out for Eduardo’s beer. Eduardo let her take it easily.

“What?” Eduardo asked.

“To the party,” Mark clarified, but she didn’t look at Eduardo when she said it, like she knew she wasn’t answering the right question. “You just didn’t see me.”

She punctuated the end of her sentence with a gulp of Eduardo’s beer, and Eduardo looked at Mark’s face like it was going to tell her something she didn’t already know. But Mark wore her expressions like a mask; even if Eduardo could read them, they didn’t give her any insight into what was going on inside Mark’s head. Sometimes she thought it just meant that Mark didn’t really know, either.

“I waited for like an hour,” Eduardo said.

Mark shrugged a little bit, took another drink of Eduardo’s beer. “You were busy.”

“When?” She hadn’t been busy. Eduardo had spent the hour checking her phone for missed calls and wondering if there was a corner she just hadn’t checked yet. She wished she’d been doing something else.

“When I came,” Mark said. “You were talking to some guy, so I left.”

Eduardo felt her stomach twist suddenly, and Mark met her gaze almost defiantly. When Eduardo took a small step forward, though, Mark shuffled back again. “Mark--”

“And before.”

It only took Eduardo a second to find the context, but it still took her too long to find words, to grasp the sharp shift of the tension between them that had suddenly become definable. “I wasn’t--”

“You don’t even,” Mark started, before she paused. “He’s not your type.”

“We were just talking,” Eduardo said quietly. “I have a class with him. I don’t even know his name.”

“He was flirting,” Mark said. “With you.”

“He wasn’t,” Eduardo said, even though she knew he was. She stared at Mark’s face; Mark’s mouth was set and she blinked too many times, little fits of anxiety. Eduardo reached out and hooked her fingers in Mark’s hoodie pocket, and she felt her mouth go soft. “And so what if he was, Mark.”

“So it’s pointless,” Mark said, taking another drink.

“It’s nice,” Eduardo said. She was too sober for how desperate she suddenly felt, her tongue clumsy in her mouth, but Mark tolerated the pressure of Eduardo’s knuckles against her stomach. “You always tell me how stupid it is when I dress up, or when I care, and if some guy wants to show me it’s not all in vain, then I’m not--”

“It’s not.”

Eduardo blinked. “What?”

Mark gave a weird, sharp shake of her head, but she said, “You look nice. I’ve always thought that.”

“Mark,” Eduardo said.

Mark kept her eyes near Eduardo’s shoulder. “I can tell you that, if that’s what you want to hear.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know that,” Mark said, harsh and quiet. “Jesus, Wardo. I don’t get what you want from me.”

“Then that makes two of us,” Eduardo replied, just as quietly. She took a deep breath and tried to unstick her tongue from the roof of her dry mouth. Mark just stood silently, her jaw tense, but Eduardo could feel the heavy thump of her heartbeat against her hands. She couldn’t think of a time she and Mark had ever been this close. She said, “Mark,” before she could think better of it.

“What?”

“I just--” She swallowed. “I didn’t think I was your type, either.”

She expected Mark to deny it, but Mark gave a slight shrug. She probably meant it to be dismissive, but Eduardo could feel how tense she was holding herself, stiff and flushed and unmoving in the sticky-warm hallway. “You never asked.”

“I didn’t know I had to.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Eduardo repeated, softer. She took a step forward and Mark didn’t take a step back. Eduardo cautiously shifted her hands to the solid curve of Mark’s waist, and after a moment, she felt the uncertain weight of Mark’s palm against her hip. Mark was still holding the beer in her other hand, even though Eduardo was fairly sure it was empty. “Mark--”

"Are you going to kiss me?"

“I really want to,” Eduardo whispered.

“I really wish we weren’t here,” Mark mumbled, but she turned her face up. Eduardo looked down at her -- the sweep of her eyelashes, her cheekbones, her wet bottom lip -- long enough that Mark’s mouth twisted into a frown. Eduardo leaned in and Mark dropped her chin, and Eduardo’s lips landed below Mark’s eye.

She waited for Mark to say something about it, but Mark just closed her eyes and found Eduardo’s mouth instead. She kissed with her mouth closed, slow and uncertain. Eduardo wondered how many people Mark had kissed before. She wondered what they were doing. She wondered what it said about their relationship if even kissing Mark left room for ambiguity.

They kissed for a few more minutes, as stiff and slow as they had started, before Mark leaned back. Her eyes were still closed, and Eduardo ducked forward again to catch the corner of her mouth because she wasn’t sure how long she had permission. Mark pressed back softly, her fingers suddenly digging into the meat of Eduardo’s hip. Eduardo pressed her body a little closer to the wall. It was barely a moment before Mark yielded.

The next time Mark pulled back, Eduardo let her go and turned her face against Mark’s neck instead. Mark’s breath was a heavy exhale in her ear, and the hand she had on Eduardo’s hip slid back until Eduardo could feel the slight scratch of her fingernails against her back. She shivered down to her feet.

"We--" Mark started, but then Dustin's voice said, "Mark?” and Eduardo moved back but not before he said, “Oh, hey. _Hey_."

It was strange, seeing Mark's expression shut down when Eduardo could still feel her heart pounding. She was torn between wanting to kiss her again and knowing Mark wouldn’t forgive her for doing it in front of Dustin. She settled for doing nothing; Mark’s hand on her back felt like it was intimate enough when someone else was watching them.

“Sorry, sorry,” Dustin said, and he clasped his hand over his eyes but widened his fingers enough to look through them. “I’m not here right now. Never mind. Someone just told me the bathroom was down here, but I’ll--”

“It’s fine,” Eduardo said, taking a small step back.

“Right,” Dustin said, glancing at Mark. Mark was scowling like it wasn’t. Dustin closed his fingers. “Anyway, Chris also wanted to know if you guys were still here, so I’ll tell him--”

“We’re about to leave, actually,” Eduardo said. “I’m getting pretty tired.” 

“Right, right,” Dustin replied. “Are you tired too, Mark?”

“Bye, Dustin,” Mark said.

“I can hear you not being angry with me,” Dustin said, but he backed out of the hall with limited prodding and only turned back to give Mark a thumbs up.

“Bye, Dustin,” Eduardo said. When he actually left, she turned back to Mark, who was still looking at her. Eduardo couldn’t read her expression. “We don’t have to leave, if you--”

“I could sleep,” Mark said, shrugging.

“Oh.”

There was a long pause, and then Mark said, “Wardo,” and nudged Eduardo’s hips a little closer. Eduardo slipped her arm around Mark’s shoulders to keep herself steady. “That was a euphemism.”

“I knew that,” Eduardo said, and when Mark hummed in doubt, Eduardo kissed her because Mark was already tilting her chin up, because she was this close and Eduardo missed her already.


End file.
